_Mr. Fax._ That should rather be considered the consequence of morbid feelings, and exaggerated expectations of society and human nature. It is the false colouring in which youthful enthusiasm depicts the scenes of futurity that throws the gloom of disappointment so deeply on their actual presence. You have formed to yourself, as you acknowledge, a visionary model of female perfection, which has rendered you utterly insensible to the real attractions of every woman you have seen. This exaggerated imagination loses more than it gains. It has not made a fair calculation of the mixture of good and evil in every constituent portion of the world of reality. It has utterly excluded the latter from the objects of its hope, and has magnified the former into such gigantic proportions, that the real goodness and beauty, which would be visible and delightful to simpler optics, vanish into imperceptibility in the infinity of their diminution. _Mr. Forester._ I desire no phantasm of abstract perfection—no visionary creation of a romantic philosophy: I seek no more than I know to have existed—than, I doubt not, does exist, though in such lamentable rarity that the calculations of probability make the search little better than desperate. I would have a woman that can love and feel poetry, not only in its harmony and decorations, which limit the admiration of ordinary mortals, but in the deep sources of love, and liberty, and truth, which are its only legitimate springs, and without which, well-turned periods and glittering images are nothing more nor less than the vilest and most mischievous tinsel. She should be musical, but she should have music in her soul as well as her fingers: her voice and her touch should have no one point in common with that mechanical squalling and jingling which are commonly dignified with the insulted name of music: they should be modes of the harmony of her mind. _Mr. Fax._ I do not very well understand that; but I think I have a glimpse of your meaning. Pray proceed. _Mr. Forester._ She should have charity—not penny charity—— _Mr. Fax._ I hope not. _Mr. Forester._ But a liberal discriminating practical philanthropy, that can select with justice the objects of its kindness, and give that kindness a form of permanence equally delightful and useful to its object and to society, by increasing the aggregate mass of intelligence and happiness. _Mr. Fax._ Go on. _Mr. Forester._ She should have no taste for what are called public pleasures. Her pleasures should be bounded in the circle of her family, and a few, a very few congenial friends, her books, her music, her flowers—she should delight in flowers—the uninterrupted cheerfulness of domestic concord, the delightful effusions of unlimited confidence. The rocks, and woods, and mountains, boundaries of the valley of her dwelling, she should be content to look on as the boundaries of the world. _Mr. Fax._ Anything more?